Date: February 8th, 2007 11:28 PM Author: beady-eyed nighttime space
It is my pleasure to announce that Brian Leiter has been PWN3D by the UChicago faculty, which just recently no-offered him.
As someone with inside information, I can confirm that one of the two Professors who torpedoed Leiter's candidacy for a permanent position was none other than liberal lion Cass Sunstein. Sunstein is still quite pissed at Leiter's asinine insult, quoted below:
“‘The lunatic left’? Did a putative liberal really utter that phrase with respect to those . . . who believe that there are grounds for impeachment in the evidence that has emerged from London? Shame on Professor Sunstein! Perhaps too many years of cozying up to the right has damaged his moral and intellectual sense."
Sunstein was hurt by this remark. Cass may be a left-wing guy, but he genuinely wants to be liked by everybody; he simply did not understand why any colleague in the legal community - especially one who entertained hopes of someday joining the faculty - would take such an outrageous shot at him.
Another influential professor whose opinions the hiring committee takes seriously described him as "craven" for the way he insults people on his blog yet licks balls in person. As if he thinks they don't know about Leiter Reports. His potshots at Alschuler last year were also not appreciated.
To end, I shall channel the venerable ChineseDude:
Date: February 8th, 2007 11:32 PM Author: beady-eyed nighttime space
Again, without revealing sources (and do note that I AM NOT FLAME), I will say that Leiter made a lot of very powerful enemies through the uncollegial demeanor of his blog. He simply didn't seem to have a clue how much the faculty hated his tone on Leiter Reports...I guess he'll learn now that you can't compartmentalize your life like that.
The thing that is mysterious to me about this is: All of this was known ex ante, pre-invitation to visit. If these feelings were already out there, why was he considered for a position?
He was around when Leiter was last quarter. I saw them having lunch once or twice. At the time, I wondered whether Sunstein had any idea what Leiter had said about him on his blog. Later, Leiter confirmed to me that Sunstein knew about the comments.
Over on LSD, an HLS student claims to have heard from an HLS prof that Sunstein is ready to leave Chicago, but Nussbaum is not.
I had dinner last night with a Northwestern prof who commutes from Boston and has an office at HLS. I mentioned this rumor to him, and his response was "I heard the exact opposite." He added that Sunstein really likes Chicago and that it doesn't make sense for him to move.
Date: February 9th, 2007 12:01 AM Author: drab nofapping masturbator
yeah suntstein likes U of C a lot. he works a lot with some GSB folks on behavorial law and economics and seems to really enjoy the law school. We'll see what happens.
Date: February 9th, 2007 12:05 AM Author: 180 bright psychic stage
That was precisely one of the reasons the prof mentioned for why it doesn't make sense for Sunstein to leave.
Despite this aberrant LSD rumor, I'm becoming more confident that Sunstein is staying. As further corroborating evidence, 2 years ago or so, Sexpert posted that Sunstein had already told HLS no.
Date: February 9th, 2007 1:02 AM Author: drunken house
Additional info: Sunstein, judging by his behavior/statements in elements, seemed to really like the 1L class this year. I would be shocked if he wanted to leave.
Date: February 9th, 2007 12:04 AM Author: beady-eyed nighttime space
Leiter is free to exercise his 1st Amendment rights.
However - and I'm not a ConLaw expert, though according to Leiter neither is Sunstein - I don't think there's a constitutional safeguard shielding you from the wrath of potential employers you've angered with your asinine, ill-considered snark.
Date: February 9th, 2007 10:18 AM Author: rusted business firm
Saying "I don't want this job, U of C is a shithole, and I like to rape kittens" is also "exercising first amendment rights," but it's not "ironic" if someone who says those things doesn't get a job offer.
Date: February 9th, 2007 11:51 AM Author: Translucent cuck hell
A guy who criticizes a messageboard where 1st Amendment rights are exercised later gets mocked by the same message board when he is denied a better job only because he exercised his 1st Amendment rights in a similar manner.
Date: February 9th, 2007 12:28 AM Author: 180 bright psychic stage
I can't imagine it makes a difference. If there is any effect, it would probably be a mild positive one. He has a lot of liberal fans who might go to a school to work with him.
Date: February 9th, 2007 12:38 AM Author: 180 bright psychic stage
Exactly. Conservatives aren't going to be scared away from Texas based on one prof, and liberals might be comforted to know they'd have at least on ally.
Date: February 9th, 2007 12:46 AM Author: High-end national security agency legend
Except now it’s 20.
“One reasonable interprtation (sic) of this data is that there are about 20 'national' law schools, and another ten-or-so borderline national law schools.”
Date: February 9th, 2007 12:51 AM Author: Translucent cuck hell
oh fuck.
I'd hate to think that where the interviewing firms come from might be a little more important than how many there are when you are determining if the school is 'national.'
Date: February 9th, 2007 12:53 AM Author: lake appetizing gay wizard
I never thought I'd say this, but today I respect U. Chicago, and acknowledge that it probably belongs in the t-14, despite my usual posts on the subject.
Date: February 9th, 2007 1:13 AM Author: 180 bright psychic stage
I hope they make him one too. I really want to see him here next year.
I don't know anything about timing. Particularly if the committee wants to give Garnett full consideration, I imagine they'll hold off on Kerr. Although, we did lose two or three crim people, so I don't see why we can't hire two replacements.
Date: February 9th, 2007 1:21 AM Author: 180 bright psychic stage
It'll be podcasted, so if you want to listen to it, it will be up later.
I thought both made some really good points. I think Calabresi did a good job defending actual textualism, whereas Strauss made strong arguments against what I would call "disingenuous" textualism. I think who won depends largely on whether you think textualists are intellectually honest or not.
Date: February 9th, 2007 1:12 AM Author: Sick Roast Beef Hominid
I really liked him and would love to see him back next year. I just never got the impression he was in love with Chicago (the city, more than the school).
And I agree, I don't know what the committee wants to see on his resume--he has a damn textbook.
Date: February 9th, 2007 1:15 AM Author: 180 bright psychic stage
Yeah, Levmore said something about "Kerr should write more." I find that shocking. I mean, the dude has published like 2 articles a year for the past 7 years and, as you say, has a damn textbook.
Date: February 9th, 2007 1:18 AM Author: judgmental headpube black woman
If they don't count his blog posts, they should. Or maybe Levmore means he should start his own blog back up. Imagine how much better the faculty blog would be...
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:02 AM Author: 180 bright psychic stage
She recently read a book about the Second Amendment, but doesn't feel particularly qualified to offer commentary when Bob Levy comes to do a FedSoc meeting on Monday, Feb. 19.
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:15 AM Author: 180 bright psychic stage
I don't know if you're aware, but the original meaning of well regulated militia includes all the general citizenry trained to arms. In fact, there is a statute still on the books from the early 1800s declaring that all men ages 17 through 45 are officially part of the militia.
So I qualify for a militia. The next step is whether the weapon itself serves a militia purpose. (citing U.S. v. Miller). I probably can't have a missile launcher. And it's probably okay for you to require gun locks. But pistols and shotguns are almost certainly Constitutionally protected.
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:21 AM Author: Sick Roast Beef Hominid
Original meaning is for the birds. But if we really care about it, don't forget gun possession was protected because people were scared of tyrannical governments like the ones they had left. I'm pretty sure your pistol/shotgun isn't going to be too helpful if the government turns on you now.
But in all seriousness, I've never understood why gun possession is such a polarizing issue. You have to admit, as far as constitutionally protected rights go, it's kind of silly.
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:25 AM Author: 180 bright psychic stage
Actually, the current situation in Iraq would argue otherwise. Most of the insurgents aren't armed with much beyond simple assault rifles and homemade IEDs.
Despite being a Texan, I actually don't care about guns much at all. I've gone to a shooting range and fired a shotgun maybe twice in my life, and I've never even held a pistol. I just really love the Second Amendment as an intellectual issue because it is completely pure. Unlike nearly every other Constitutional provision, the Second Amendent has virtually no precedent standing in the way of pure Constitutional textual interpretation (there have only been 5 SCOTUS cases in history directly related to Second Amendment issues, and only 2 or 3 of them even said anything useful).
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:30 AM Author: Sick Roast Beef Hominid
I just find it odd. Most of the other "big" rights are high minded, normative base lines like free speech and procedural rights of the accused. Then you have the Second Amendment. I mean what was the point? It had to be a real fear that a tyrannical govt would limit the weaponry available for revolt. But if you have a tyrannical govt, it probably doesn't care much for the Constitution anyway. So again, what's the point?
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:40 AM Author: judgmental headpube black woman
One of the first things a tyrannical government does is to attempt to disarm its citizens. This is for a reason - an armed citizenry is much more able to resist more serious impositions. If the FBI decided tomorrow it wanted to act like the NKVD, it would still have to think about widespread Ruby Ridge-type incidents, except this time perpetrated by what we would probably consider normal Americans rather than freaks.
Therefore there is at least a signaling purpose - when the government takes away your guns, it is either consciously planning to restrict other rights, or making it easier for a future government to do so. I think that's why, for some people, guns are more important that the issue alone would seem to justify. Guns, both practically and symbolically, protect other rights.
More broadly, to the extent that the Declaration and our national experience, if not the Constitution, recognize the right to rebel at some level of tyranny, that right cannot be exercized by a disarmed citizenry.
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:47 AM Author: Sick Roast Beef Hominid
I guess my response is that what you say is trivially true. Of course it's easier to revolt with guns than without them. However, there is no longer a concern about a tyrannical regime coming into power.
No one attempts to justify their firearm as a means of protection from the government. They want to hunt or think it provides a measure of self-defense, from other citizens, not the government.
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:49 AM Author: nudist idea he suggested
"No one attempts to justify their firearm as a means of protection from the government. They want to hunt or think it provides a measure of self-defense, from other citizens, not the government."
does this really matter? i don't think there's a constitutional principle that you have to exercise your rights for the reason they were originally intended.
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:53 AM Author: Sick Roast Beef Hominid
Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure if there is such a principle. But I would venture to guess that most pro-gun people are originalists. And if the argument is based on original meaning, why wouldn't you focus on the reason the rights were originally granted?
Date: February 9th, 2007 3:02 AM Author: nudist idea he suggested
well the obvious originalist response is that it's not the original purpose that is the law, it is the law itself as originally understood. so you can have guns, since that is what they meant.
but beyond that, even if people keep guns for recreation, for self defense, or for popping caps in rival gangs' asses, it still serves the purpose of making the populace more resistant to oppression. so the originalist intent is satisfied whether individual gun owners intend it to be or not.
Date: February 9th, 2007 3:23 AM Author: nudist idea he suggested
sure it does. in the event of an occupation or something, it doesn't take an assault rifle or military training to be much more trouble than you're worth. a hunting rifle is a hell of a bigger problem to occupiers than nothing.
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:50 AM Author: judgmental headpube black woman
"No one attempts to justify their firearm as a means of protection from the government."
I do, call me crazy. If somehow you could convince me that there will never be a danger of tyranny, I'd agree to repealing the second amendment and allowing any government regulation of guns. I might still vote against some anti-gun laws, just because I might like to go shooting sometime, but without the anti-tyranny value, guns are indistinguishable from fishing poles or knives. Self defense and sport can't be the basis for a constitutional level of protection - that's just bizzare.
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:56 AM Author: Sick Roast Beef Hominid
You're likely the minority. I actually tend to agree--I have no problem with guns if the justification is protection from tyranny. The trouble is, what's the level of proof it would take to convince you tyranny has ended as a possibility?
Date: February 9th, 2007 3:02 AM Author: judgmental headpube black woman
Realistically, no level would be sufficient. One of the lessons I take from history is that just when you think you're safe, you're not. That doesn't mean I'm paranoid, worrying about overt tyranny on a daily basis - I don't. But I do think tyranny is not only possible, but likely over the extreme long term, and unpalatable but tiny steps in that direction are attempted by government all the time. To the extent that guns slow that, they have value.
But to answer your question, maybe abolition of the regulatory state would reassure me, but the rump government that remained would have neither the power or the will to regulate gun ownership, so that doesn't really get me anywhere.
Date: February 9th, 2007 3:20 AM Author: judgmental headpube black woman
I think that's definitely true, and I'm positive a relatively high level of concern over the threat of tyranny correlates really strongly with support for gun rights among people who think about the issue seriously (that is, setting aside those like otherwise apolitical sportsmen who are simply protecting their own narrow interest).
In fact, I'd bet its a much better predictor than opinions on constitutional construction. This is interesting because almost nobody talks about fear of tyranny publically. This might be because its so easy to attack rhetorically. ("Come on, you don't think [hyperbolic example of tyranny] is REALLY likely, do you?") A "no" answer disproves your point, "yes" makes you look crazy, and anything else looks like a mealy waffle.
Date: February 9th, 2007 2:53 AM Author: judgmental headpube black woman
Thx. I wish I could take a class on 2nd Amendment jurisprudence so I could read the 2-3 cases (as MTG pointed out) and then come up with crap like this on the exam.
you're easily impressed. he basically parroted the trite tyranny argument and dressed it up as something he came up with. that you found it impressive suggests a lot of things: the most obvious of which is that you're a complete buffoon.
Date: February 9th, 2007 1:25 AM Author: Zippy station persian
INFOTOPIAWNED.
As a likely incoming 1L, I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear this. One of the things that has always attracted me to UofC is its reputation for cultivating an atmosphere of mutual respect between proponents of oppositional views. Regardless of his merits as a teacher, Leiter's reputation as an antagonistic firebrand would have sullied that.
Now, if Sunstein sticks around, and Kerr joins the squad...Oh man...Geeky...0L naivete...Overload.
Date: February 9th, 2007 1:38 AM Author: clear spectacular theatre fat ankles
How did it happen that making the tired claim that this ghetto shithole is UNDERrated became the signature conversation piece for people who desperately want to be thought smart; really, really smart. smart people love "rigor" and Chicago is full of it; it must be, what with its hair-splitting number grades, punishingly low enforced mean, and oppressive course load. Chicago boosterism usually comes in the form of a comparison with the appallingly UNrigorous Stanford or Yale -- gradeless, abundantly pass-fail, unserious; students who do nothing and know nothing. Chicago: graded, competitive, serious... That it's really just a ruptured ego rehab clinic for Harvard rejects is a fact not emphasized. I have seen a homely Chicago girl, deep into her second year, still spontaneously weeping upon Proustian recollections of the stiff NO Harvard sent her, in brisk three-week turnaround time from the point her doomed application was deemed complete. Happy December, chickiepoo. Then the Yale axe fell, as it does. Welcome to the New Year, dipshit. January passed; February crawled by with those joyless acceptances that only accentuated the horror of Plan B: Georgetown, which is a "Law Center," a failed euphemism if ever there was one. Next: woeful Cornell. Oh, what a very bad school. And -- what do we have here?!? -- a Boston University full-ride. Ummmm, no. On second thought in stead of BU I'd prefer the f free roasted dogshit mignon with a pus reduction sauce and a heaping blob of earwax garnish. Thank you no. I am woe. Add to that the fact that the imbecile whoalways posts about how Sean Hannity is a "serious thinker" just got into Harvard. Time for you to start some damage-control posting here, on the PR board, pretending to seriously consider this BU affront. You wave the flag of thrift and test out a quaintly anachronistic abhorrence of debt. Substantively, you add in some tommyrot about how BU's "really strong in ...'international law,' whatever the fuck that is. BU? Yeah, right. But you need something that gives the illusion that Georgetown, if it comes to that, isn't the three years incarcerated in a smegma chamber that it is. So good, so fine you'll drop the cash dollars despite that lovely gift from BU. You're forming a cover story; something to puff the very real and very nauseating prospect of joining 600 other defeated mediocrities at ... fuck, no ... Georgetown. And you thought going to college at Penn was bad. . Still, there are two more to hear from. Two more law schools ...There's that late April Stanford rejection (inconsiderate bastards) which at least affords you ample time to manufacture the next layer in the cover story: e.g., a strict policy against California, a suburban aversion, a preference for bigness, all of which eliminate Stanford from the sweepstakes. Be sure, too, to ridicule their tepid 25-75 LSAT %ile, too. Kill it dead, if you must. Maybe you thrust out of your frozen horror by sending off one of those strategic "withdrawal" letters, the way all those clowns do when Harvard puts them on hold ... ".you cant't fire me ... i quit! " Adios, Stanford. Suck my cunt, you no-SCOTUS-clerking/dike-dean-TTT. ... die, die, you gravy-sucking pig. .... and now, then, there is just one. Chicago. The Law School. Chicago does do that pathetic yield-maximizing stall, so February passes, March crawls. They haven't the nuts to try the ricockulous move Stanford does. So they write. Ever rigorous, The Law School requests the pleasure of your company. Not so fast . No decision has been made. They want to inspect you in person. The "evaluative interview. Looking for people skills. And evident thirst for knowledge. The life of the law is the law itself. It seems you've fucked up; quite possible3 when the went "behind the numbers." Maybe those two essay paragraphs about why the 171, exactly where you topped out in Kaplan, is a truer measure than the 164. maybe it was two paragraphs too many. You weren't an auto-admit. So off to the "evaluative interview," and you give them not much to evaluate. You stay on message, though: owing to its RIGOR, Chicage is now, and ever was, your FIRST CHOICE. Tell your audience what it wants to hear. Then they decide, engaging the only evaluation that matters in this gig. Looks like they can break even with your sorry ass. Median-wise, your 171 nullifies the 159 URM from Howard they took yesterday. They'll swallow your 3.46; sometimes that's the price of a yield-lock, and you're that. (No one's swallowing the Howard guy, if you catch my racy double entendre.) These admissions guys talk, as you suspected, and you wisely decide against telling them it had come down to Chicago or Harvard for you; first versus second choice; no choice at all. Never get caught lying. Bad idea, even worse than telling that stupid girl from Emory you were "a Kennedy." These things get found out. Like they say, no sense lying about your cock size. Turns out you didn't need to fake a bidding war. The usual stampede of all Chicago's best admitees are going to Y and H and S without so much as the courtesy of telling C to go pound sand. Why tell them what they already know? They need to fill place #143 of their famously teeny-weenie class. The assumed occupant got unheld at Harvard this morning; never so relieved, he had the audacity to ask Chicago for his deposit back. They don't need these headaches. You're in. They write, very pleased to offer admission; then a recital of just how "keen" the competition was for the few precious "seats" in the class of 2006; and, finally, a paragraph celebrating the legal profession with a toploftiness and richly felt purpose so precisely at variance with reality that you are unsettled by the suspicion that you might be the target of a satire so subtly corrosive that you will never connect it with the despair that will progress, exponentially; beginning as a persistent annoyance progressing into a pervasive physical and mental crapulence and ending in the crippling burden as lumber and writhe and tumble toward the epiphany. What epiphany is that? That this "career" of yours --BIGLAW! -- has somewhat less to recommend it than residence in the "shoe" at Pelican Bay. For now, though, the seed of tragic hopelessness finds expression in the "Law Discussion Area." You post -- IN AT CHICAGO -- and, without overtly lying, you manufacture the entirely erroneous impression that you "chose" Chicago, being also the originator of the CHICAGO v. HARVARD and YALE v. CHICAGO threads, under various of your insipid monikers, all selected from either Pulp Fiction or Friends. Be careful not to ass fuck your credibility, though. The purported Yale turn-down is a tough one to pull off. The "New Haven's-an-armpit" trope just doesn't pass the ha-ha test. It's too puny a reason to toss away a lifetime of being supposed a genius ... fuck it: always good to give your fabrications a little populist tint, not to mention a dollop of truth. Join the commiseration thread of Yale rejects; pretend to be sad for that Nuisance turd; be one of the masses for once. Getting rejected isn't the same thing as not getting in, You merely did not get in. You claim to have been wait-listed; and, with admirable maturity, you hold out no hope. Remember, too, this lie must be built on several fronts. Lard up the Harvard thread with grave concern about big classes, low morale, faculty acrimony, and speculation about a precipitous US News ranking drop. Throughout April, you go political, fulminating about Tribe and Dershowitz and how Duncan Kennedy drives a far-too-expensive car. to be a genuine socialist. Chicago's "conservative climate" is just a better fit for you; marginal cost curves figure in your every analytical moment; you read Posner opinions on the crapper; Coase is as important as Socrates. There is that little stinging glitch, though. Somehow Stanford neglected to process that request to quash your application, which is not favorably acted upon and this is memoriaized in a letter that suggests the Stanford Admissions Office ignores their LaserWriter Pro's TONER LOW warning. On May 7th they regret to inform and wish you well at any of the scores of other law schools that, they assure you "offer excellent programs of legal instruction." (Which, you have no doubt, they do. What they don't offer, is really the only important thing Stanford does offer: the opportunity to sit for three years with your thumb up your ass, comatose, and still get the job you'll have to bust nuts to get coming from whichever craphole you end up at.) It's sealed. An ugly, styleless maroon CHICAGO LAW, Champion sweatshirt has arrived, per your online order. You wear it, eliciting congratulations from the babe you want to rail. She's so happy for you, and you're so wrapped up in the fantasy of creaming on her tits you nearly miss perky aside that her boyfriend remains in the throes of elation from his admission to Yale, back in January. Throughout the summer, you bookmark links that embody the wisdom US News lacks. Your are heading off, soon, to your own first choice, which also places first in a ranking produced by the rigorous methodology conceived by a statistician from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. That Harvard tied for #14 undermines your confidence in the ranking diminishes the likelihood it will supplant US News' preeminence. So you go. Your Hyde Park apartment is actually rather nice. Your housemate went to Harvard College. One night, instead of jacking off before sleep, you register as an active component of your self-conception the notion that, transitively, your housemate's undergraduate credential nullifies the Harvard rejection that left you lusterless and unlaid at your senior prom, -- and has persisted as a gnawing ache, going on five years. You are now on equal footing with a Harvard graduate. Should your law school prowess exceed his -- say a 75 in Torts to his 74 -- you will once and for all flick away the scab of that Harvard wound. First cut is the deepest. As it turns out, your housemate is an engaging, witty fellow. He's porking the big bosomed lady with the Dutch accent. Wow! He offers to you, his new chum, the story of his own execution -- by lethal injection -- as expected, he painlessly relates, by the HLS admission staff. You pretend to explore what might have caused things to go awry, flatulating the usual fatuousness about Harvard being excessively "numbers driven," the "arbitrariness" of it all, dangling the threat of going on at some length, when he offers up the only information you genuinely care to know about him: : 178/3.34 ..Of course some one will inevitably have the 6th percentile college GPA in every HLS class; probably not a white guy from Greenwich, though. Friendship is built through reciprocity. So you tell your own story. You attempt to weave compassion into the telling of your story, being careful not to appear boastful about not just possessing, but discarding something he does not possess. HLS. Dreamy, So, your story: the grueling back-and-forth ... one day it's Chicago, the next Harvard; the hardest decision you've ever made; that feeling of immense responsibility to yourself; discovering and summoning the emotional maturity to pierce the specious veil that is prestige. With the bearing of a battle weary soldier you tell what it is to do something rarely done -- circumnavigate the Earth, dunk a basketball on a regulation hoop, turn down Harvard Law School . You picked Chicago. You chose, you adorable little existentialist. You are not exposed, chiefly because this a shared lie, Community glue. (Postscript: Throughout the 1Lyear you and your housemate discover much commonality, He, too, prefers the Stones to the Beatles. You both smoke pot. neither is circumcised. You've each fucked 5 girls; gotten head from several others. Each of you applies to transfer. He gets into HLS. He turns down Harvard Law School. Of course no two people are exactly alike. Your desire to transfer wanes around the time Stanford and Yale's decisions on your transfer applications reach you by mail. You begin the CHIGAGO 1L TAKING QUESTIONS thread. One of your alter ego monikers asks simply: how do you like Chicago. You love it. You wouldn't go anywhere else and, you note, there were other places you could have gone. Same for your housemate. He transfers to Yale.)
Date: February 9th, 2007 1:54 AM Author: chartreuse stimulating therapy coldplay fan
Every time i read that, some new line sticks out at me. This time:
"You're in. They write, very pleased to offer admission; then a recital of just how "keen" the competition was for the few precious "seats" in the class of 2006; and,finally, a paragraph celebrating the legal profession with a toploftiness and richly felt purpose so precisely at variance with reality that you are unsettled by the suspicion that you might be the target of a satire so subtly corrosive that you will never connect it with the despair that will progress, exponentially."
I wonder how many Biglaw associates believe that last line of their admission letters was accurate.
Date: February 9th, 2007 1:46 AM Author: adventurous pale double fault
It'll probably be a while until you hear about Kerr unless he accepts on the spot. Profs sometimes get months to decide on lateral offers, so you might not find out if he's coming or not until after the deposit deadline.
In any case, getting Kerr, keeping Sunstein, and dinging Leiter are all pretty big coups for Chicago.
"He has been voted "Professor of the Year" by his students and has received an average instructor rating of 4.6 (out of 5.0) for the eleven large classes (avg. size: 42) taught 2001 - 2006."
Is this not the UChicago equivalent of saying "I have been posting for 6 years and have received several 180s"?
Date: February 9th, 2007 1:48 AM Author: adventurous pale double fault
There's actually been a ton of controversy over Leiter's wikipedia entry, since someone has apparently been repeatedly editing out all negative information about him.
Date: February 9th, 2007 3:07 AM Author: violent community account
When I came across the thread title I half expected to be awash in glorious righteous schadenfreude by the end of the OP. Instead, I'm left feeling a little sad for him. The impression of Leiter I have, given the stark contrast between reports from his students and his petty, gossip-mongering and sometimes vicious online persona, is one of a childish man who courts attention at all cost but is essentially harmless. If the story's true, the sadness is in Leiter's inability to keep his fucking mouth shut, and doubly in the insularity of academia.
Date: February 9th, 2007 3:20 AM Author: violent community account
You of all people have good cause for celebration. I know that, dooder. I meant harmless in his day to day role as a professor, not as a gossipy blogger.
Date: February 9th, 2007 3:27 AM Author: Aromatic Fighting Mad-dog Skullcap
There was a time when I thought xoxo's collective animosity towards Leiter was, though not unfounded, a bit out of proportion. It seems, however, that this guy has perfected the art of being an absolute cocksucker all the while putting on a "who, me?" facade. Pretty fucking childish, and that's coming from someone of my immaturity.
Date: February 9th, 2007 10:45 AM Author: Walnut motley faggot firefighter
Over 800 firms: Georgetown, Harvard [note, of course, that Georgetown and Harvard are the two largest top law schools in the country in terms of student population]
Over 700 firms: Virginia
Over 600 firms: Duke, Michigan, NYU
Over 500 firms: Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Penn, Stanford
Over 400 firms: George Washington, Howard, Northwestern, Texas, Yale
Over 300 firms: Cornell, UCLA, Vanderbilt
-------------------------------------------------
The Cornell trolling is crossing over from subtle to blatant.
Date: February 9th, 2007 9:04 AM Author: Garnet hairless scourge upon the earth
This thread needs pictures. Someone get to linking his big tittiedness' debate with Posner, and be sure to bring back up how the well respected man in the room never acknowledged his presence.
Date: February 9th, 2007 9:21 AM Author: Zippy station persian
February 8th, 2007 will go down in history as the day that the University of Chicago Law School cemented its legacy as the most prestigious institution on the face of the Earth.
Date: February 9th, 2007 12:52 PM Author: violent community account
Right. Spastic prose and detailed knowledge of things xoxo and tropes terribly similar to a known poster's. I sometimes neglect to spell out everything everything everything everything everything, partly because I'm lazy and partly because I give readers too much credit. Forgive me.
Date: February 9th, 2007 12:28 PM Author: Zippy station persian
Damn. You probably woke up in a cold sweat.
If you stand in front of a mirror and utter "Leiter" three times, he spontaneously manifests himself on your law school faculty. I saw that on one of the final episodes of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?"
Date: February 9th, 2007 12:51 PM Author: sable deer antler
As a Chicago alum, this makes me very happy, especially since Professor Alschuler deserves a thousand times more respect than that fucking chump Leiter.
Date: February 13th, 2007 12:12 AM Author: Vermilion ticket booth alpha
Is there any substantiation for this claim? As someone who has "inside information" into this matter, I can say with a fair bit of confidence that this is completely false. In fact, I have reason to believe that Leiter actually made it known to the committee that he would NOT accept a full-time offer if one were to be extended. Leiter apparently is very loyal to UT and is happy to stay there for years to come.
I just wanted to add some factual perspective to this discussion filled with rumour and innuendo.
Date: February 13th, 2007 1:07 AM Author: Thriller Olive Mad Cow Disease
How is your information 'verifiable', you insufferable twatscar? You're engaging in as much innuendo and circle-jerking (although you seem to be playing the antiquated game of Eat the Biscuit with Leiter himself) as the rest of us.
The difference is that mocking Leiter is a time-honored xoxo tradition (mostly tongue in cheek), whereas posts defending him tend to come from hit and run posters that in all likelihood share a Texas IP with a penchant for searching xoxohth for "Jew", "boobs" and "R@ygold"
EDIT: Nice edit, jackass. Next time leave up the post where you point out that xoxo is engaging in a 'usual circle-jerk' and that you are relying on hallowed, verifiable information from God Himself.
Date: February 13th, 2007 1:35 AM Author: Stirring Sexy Idiot Party Of The First Part
Date: February 13th, 2007 1:02 AM
Author: tokyorose
Yes, that's the spirit! Surely any poster that would actually choose to break from the autoadmit circle-jerk of gossip and slander and instead rely on verifiable information is actually Brian Leiter! Chalk up another victory to the master sleuths that rule this roost.
Date: February 13th, 2007 11:43 PM Author: adventurous pale double fault
Well, I'm not going to speculate on where you're getting your information, but the information posted in the OP was independently received by multiple individuals from multiple sources with "inside information," and has been attributed to more than one Chicago faculty member. Not going to name names on here, but the information appears to have been verified as best it can short of the chair of Chicago's appointments committee posting about it on the faculty blog.
So, either your information is wrong, or there are multiple Chicago faculty members out there who hate Brian Leiter so much that they're going to spread "rumors and innuendo" about him behind his back... and given the civility of the Chicago law faculty, I don't think the latter is likely.
In any case, regardless of who has the correct "inside information," it seems everyone can agree that Leiter won't be leaving UT for Chicago.
Date: February 13th, 2007 8:33 AM Author: Garnet hairless scourge upon the earth
Fuck you you fat big tittied shell of a man. You must be a fucking semi-regular if you're using the edit function. And someone else tell me what his now blanked post said.
Date: February 13th, 2007 12:42 AM Author: beady-eyed nighttime space
Not only that, but it sounds just like Leiter's writing style. In fact, I think it's time to copy this post just in case it disappears into the aether.
Note also that "Tokyo Rose" was the name used by the notorious Japanese radio propagandist during the Second World War. Treat the info accordingly.
Date: February 13th, 2007 12:42 AM Author: beady-eyed nighttime space
Date: February 13th, 2007 12:12 AM
Author: tokyorose
Is there any substantiation for this claim? As someone who has "inside information" into this matter, I can say with a fair bit of confidence that this is completely false. In fact, I have reason to believe that Leiter actually made it known to the committee that he would NOT accept a full-time offer if one were to be extended. Leiter apparently is very loyal to UT and is happy to stay there for years to come.
I just wanted to add some factual perspective to this discussion filled with rumour and innuendo.
Date: February 13th, 2007 12:55 AM Author: exciting windowlicker heaven
That writing style is odd. Doesn't read like a law student at all. The scare quotes around "inside information" are very stilted.
The post has two very different factual claims. The second one is is by its own terms speculative ("apparently") and claims to have knowledge that is almost impossible for anyone but Leiter himself to state with actual knowledge.
The first claim could well be factual, but note that even if Leiter said that in writing to an entire committee, or intimated that to one or two profs, or tossed it out after learning his childish antics had cost him a professional opportunity, Leiter could have made such a statement as a purely defensive matter, having learned or feared that he was about to be rejected. "You can't ding me, I'm not putting myself in the running."
Date: February 13th, 2007 9:22 PM Author: High-end national security agency legend
If Leiter didn't give a shit about the Chicago job, why did he stop posting all the normal bullshit to his blog re: xo, top 14, etc., only to resume as soon as it became apparent Leiter would not be joining the Chicago faculty?
In another thread, that nic came in with no prior history and started talking about "Ciolli the smut-master." It's either Leiter, or somebody doing a very good job at aping him.
Date: February 13th, 2007 2:34 PM Author: kink-friendly toaster sanctuary Subject: You decide
We all may use some of these phrases in our writings, but . . . . .
"Is there any substantiation for this claim? As someone who has 'inside information' into this matter, I can say with a fair bit of confidence that this is completely false. In fact, I have reason to believe that Leiter actually made it known to the committee that he would NOT accept a full-time offer if one were to be extended. Leiter apparently is very loyal to UT and is happy to stay there for years to come.
I just wanted to add some factual perspective to this discussion filled with rumour and innuendo."
“inside information”
Oxford is now looking to fill the Waynflete Chair in Metaphysical Philosophy (Dorothy Edgington, the current holder, is retiring); although I have no ***inside information***, my guess as an outside observer is that Oxford would be well-served (as the Law faculty was in filling the Jurisprudence Chair with John Gardner) by going for some of the first-rate younger philosophers still in Britain, such as Michael Martin (at University College London) or Ian Rumfitt (moving from Oxford to Birkbeck College, London).
This response can and should involve several initiatives. First, we urge that you make clear to the public that academic judgments about members of the faculty must be left to the academy and that the attempted intrusion by donors or by politicians ***into this matter*** is entirely inappropriate.
Without having studied the methodology carefully, ***I can say*** that it strikes me as an especially useful feature of this survey that it breaks down job placement success at elite firms by region of the country, which may ultimately be far more useful information for prospective law students than "national" placement per se.
Timothy Williamson, G.A. Cohen, Myles Burnyeat, and Michael Frede at Oxford; Simon Blackburn and Raymond Geuss at Cambridge; Sarah Broadie at St. Andrews--and both Cohen and Blackburn have been doing ***a fair bit of*** US-visiting recently.).
Here's what I think: (1) obviously the right-wing has been waging a campaign against tenure, but that's neither here nor there in this instance; (2) what the Deans are objecting to is the ABA's attempt to force tenure privileges ***to be extended*** to all those who teach, in various capacities (academic, clinical, legal writing), in law schools.
I'll end on an amusing note, by quoting an e-mail from one Andrew Anthony, who ***apparently is*** a devoted reader of Mr. Kamm; Mr. Anthony responded to my earlier posting as follows:
Visits from Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and New Zealand each account for .2% of the visits--that could, of course, be just a handful of ***very loyal**** readers!
Date: February 13th, 2007 9:32 AM Author: Zippy station persian
Does any of this really even matter, you guys? I mean REALLY matter? We think we understand so much, but really it's all so fleeting. I think this deep poem kind of, like, puts things in perspective:
Ephemera
The light flicks on
the bulb glows green
the bulb glows red
we buy we sell
and think we understand
We only clutch
upon a thread
some call
enlightenment
It will not last
a winter in the mind
For now we keep
some measure and
struggle to divine
a pinhole into pleasure
the portents of decline
5/10-6/15/96, 5/28/97, 1/26/98, 5/12/98
Copyright 1998 by Maurice Leiter
EDIT: Interesting that Leiter made this his poem of the week last Friday, in the wake of his no-offer. Methinks "the portents of decline" are becoming too hard to ignore.
Date: February 13th, 2007 2:43 PM Author: exciting windowlicker heaven
From the amazon blurb for the novel "Maurice."
Set in the elegant Edwardian world of Cambridge undergraduate life, this story by a master novelist introduces us to Maurice Hall when he is fourteen. We follow him through public school and Cambridge, and on into his father's firm, Hill and Hall, Stock Brokers. In a highly structured society, Maurice is a conventional young man in almost every way, "stepping into the niche that England had prepared for him": except that his is homosexual.
Written during 1913 and 1914, immediately after Howards End, and not published until 1971, Maurice was ahead of its time in its theme and in its affirmation that love between men can be happy. "Happiness," Forster wrote, "is its keynote….In Maurice I tried to create a character who was completely unlike myself or what I supposed myself to be: someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid, not a bad businessman and rather a snob. Into this mixture I dropped an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him."
Date: October 31st, 2007 11:38 PM Author: lilac lettuce center
i'm 25 and i'll make ~200k at latham & watkins next year; you're about twice my age and you care about what guys like me write on message boards.
it honestly seems like you're the one with a bit of a confidence problem. stop caring what XO says... we're just idiots, right? ok start living like it.
i predict that in the future you will continue to "follow" XO on your blog and probably post on here. you'll take glee in anything that goes bad here and enjoy lecturing us on how evil we are. and i look forward to being reminded at those times that "hey, that leiter guy is insecure". seriously, grow up dr. leiter.